Source: news.yahoo.com | Repost Duerson Fund 12/4/2023 –
A blast shattered the stillness of a meadow in the Ozark Mountains on an autumn afternoon. Then another, and another, and another, until the whole meadow was in flames.
Special Operations troops were training with rocket launchers again.
Each operator held a launch tube on his shoulder, a few inches from his head, then took aim and sent a rocket flying at 500 mph. And each launch sent a shock wave whipping through every cell in the operator’s brain.
For generations, the military assumed that this kind of blast exposure was safe, even as evidence mounted that repetitive blasts may do serious and lasting harm.
In recent years, Congress, pressed by veterans who were exposed to these shock waves, has ordered the military to set safety limits and start tracking troops’ exposure. In response, the Pentagon created a sprawling Warfighter Brain Health Initiative to study the issue, gather data and propose corrective strategies. And last year, for the first time, it set a threshold above which a weapon blast is considered hazardous.